AcuMax CEO Interview with Murray Feldman, Fox 2 Detroit

AcuMax CEO Interview with Murray Feldman, Fox 2 Detroit

Jay Hawreluk, CEO discusses AcuMax Index with Murray Feldman, Channel 2 News, and how employers find employees who are the right fit based on their hard wiring.

Murray Feldman:
Are you the one that they want? That’s John Travolta and Olivia Newton John getting us started as we open up the Job Shop. You want to be the one that they want. That’s why they do assessments on people that they’re going to hire first. Now I don’t think that we have ever seen this on TV before. This is how companies do the assessments. This is how they determine if you are a good fit, if you’re the one that they want.

This is Jay Hawreluk, CEO and consultant at the Dearborn company AcuMax. They are not a recruiting or staffing company, but they enable employees to determine if a job candidate is right for them. A lot of companies do that. They measure what is called your hardwiring. What is that that you measure? What’s hardwiring?

Jay Hawreluk:
It’s a great question because there’s a lot of personality and behavior assessments in the marketplace, but personality and behavior changes over time. We measure your innate wiring, which actually occurs within a 12 to 18-month period after birth as brain chemicals form in the brain.

Murray Feldman:
Wow, it sounds really complicated, but as you’re going to see in a couple of minutes, it may not be that complicated. You told me about 45% of companies now are doing some kind of assessments like this.

Jay Hawreluk:
Yes, absolutely.

Murray Feldman:
Wow, that’s a lot of people who are screening before they hire people. I took the test a couple of months ago, I guess it was a couple of weeks ago. Took me about five minutes or so. They were lists of words. Here’s what happened. I had to tell which words others would relate to me and then which words I would relate to myself. The words were simple words like …

Jay Hawreluk:
Like calm, individualistic, outgoing.

Murray Feldman:
It was my interpretation of what somebody else thinks of me, and then what I think of myself. It may not be accurate. How do you analyze that?

Jay Hawreluk:
The words actually are on specific algorithms, number spreads. How it works is when you check the words of how others expect you to act, that’s conscious mind driven. When you go to the other words, check the words that really represent you. It’s not what the word means and how it pings you. If it pings you positive, you check it. If you ping it negatively, it doesn’t.

Murray Feldman:
All right, see, it’s starting to get a bit complicated now. It’s not as easy as we thought in the beginning. Let’s take a look at my results. You guys were nice enough to let me do this. First of all, you said that I want options in decision making.

Jay Hawreluk:
Yes.

Murray Feldman:
I do. I don’t want somebody to just tell me it has to be done this way. I want to be part of the team. There you go, the second one is likes team driven, likes time to think through. You and I in preparing for this, you saw that, that I like to think things through. Likes to set a plan and then tilt toward subjective. Tell me about that. What is that?

Jay Hawreluk:
Your wiring says this is how you’re best engaged, when you have options in decision making, when you can really think it through to buy in, setting your plan and following it, getting firm data and information in decision making, and also tells me how you’ll tilt in a subjective decision.

Murray Feldman:
This is not a pass/fail test.

Jay Hawreluk:
No, it’s not a pass/fail test.

Murray Feldman:
A lot of companies use these assessments.

Jay Hawreluk:
Yes.

Murray Feldman:
Some companies can even have the assessments on their current employees to see if their employees are up to the task at that location.

Jay Hawreluk:
Absolutely, because the assessment not only tells me how you’re wired, but it’s how you’re best motivated and how you communicate. We all are motivated and communicate differently. Everybody talks and thinks, but effective communicating is how I process that thought.

Murray Feldman:
When you look at this test and you make the assessment, you have to know what the company really wants in those key areas as well.

Jay Hawreluk:
Absolutely. We work with the companies to set up the wiring literally like this. Jobs have wiring, people have wiring. When you match the wiring of the job with the wiring of the person, I’m more engaged, I’m more successful, I’m more productive. It’s a win-win for the company and the employee.

Murray Feldman:
Very briefly, you related that to the TV business. We don’t have to mention other television stations but what were you telling me?

Jay Hawreluk:
Your wiring may not be a fit in one organization but it might be a great fit in another. That’s the critical thing. It’s why a lot of people “I loved working at this company but I really didn’t like working at another company.” Every company has different requirements. If you match it, you’re more successful.

Murray Feldman:
Jay, thank you for sharing the secrets behind those assessment tests with us, how the companies decide if we get the job or not. More information on this and a link to his company at myfoxdetroit.com on the Job Shop page. Am I good for this job?

Jay Hawreluk:
Yes you are.

Murray Feldman:
Thank you very much.

Jay Hawreluk:
Thanks for having me.

Unraveling the Mystery of People

People are naturally wired from birth (nature), but behavior is a function of both nature and nurture.